


On the Face of the Movement

by psyche_girl



Series: Identity Politics [2]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Accidental friendship, Charles is not pleased, Erik what are you doing, F/M, Fury has ulcers now, Gen, I will not be ashamed, M/M, OH STEVE, Politics, Tony is a troll, Ultimates Thor is the best Thor, naivete, warnings for incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyche_girl/pseuds/psyche_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve Rodgers makes friends with Magneto, Darcy and Thor save the world through the power of Twitter, Pepper Potts saves the Hulk through the power of scheduling, Reed Richards is introduced to feminism, there is rather more incest than everybody is entirely comfortable with, and everything really is all Loki's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The _first_ signs of trouble, ironically enough, have nothing to do with Magneto or mutants at all. The first signs of trouble come when Steve heads directly back to SHIELD after the Avengers have collectively vacated Stark tower to go their separate ways and requests, politely, a) a full military discharge, b) a laptop, c) a dossier on the history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and d) a voter registration form.

He gets three out of four. In retrospect, the discharge papers would probably have been the least dangerous item to give him.

 

When the voter registration forms finally arrive (delivered deliberately _after_ Rogers has been released from SHIELD medical) he doesn’t even bother to fill them out, just tucks them into the Stark-issue rucksack holding his shield, phone, and iPad (carefully programmed with safe search, along with a number of other security measures) and heads straight for the door of Fury’s temporary office.

“Sir,” Rogers says, when he’s finally let in. He's standing, not stiff and angry with suspicion, or huddled in on himself with barely-repressed grief the way he'd been that first week out of the ice, but in textbook-perfect military rest.

Fury blinks, and starts paying _attention_.

“Requesting permission to leave base, sir. I’d like to go help with the cleanup.” Earnest blue eyes assault Fury with a truly overwhelming amount of goodwill. “Lots of people have had homes buried under the rubble out there, sir, and they need every man they’ve got out on the street.”

On the one hand, Captain America has been a flight risk ever since he figured out SHIELD's first betrayal, and the most recent betrayals (Phase Two, the nuclear warheads, the cards - which Rogers and Stark may or may not have already twigged as a scam) have been quite a bit larger than a little bit of 1940s plaster-and-paint.

On the other hand, Rogers has at least two trackers stitched into the various wounds that were treated in Medical, in addition to tracking chips embedded in his iPad and SHIELD-issue Starkphone, he came back voluntarily after the battle was over, and Fury would have to be either dead or an idiot to pass up _this_ kind of press coverage. The only way it could look better were if the man were _literally_ rescuing baby kittens. He lets Rogers go, and make sure he doesn't catch sight of the following cameras.

Thirty-four minutes later, the SHIELD news and surveillance teams have lost Steve completely, and all four tracking devices have been discovered abandoned in the letterbox of the (miraculously intact) Harlem Office DMV building on 125th and 159 East, dripping blood and wires all over a pile of neatly completed voter registration forms.

 

The second sign of trouble comes when, instead of running either to Stark or deep cover after removing the trackers, Steve spends the next two months doing exactly what he told Fury he would: working with a group of social workers in inner-city Harlem to clear rubble and help the newly homeless. After Rogers's first two all-night shifts, he's given space to sleep on the ratty old sofa of the group’s leader (Sam Wilson, age: 26, height: 6’1”, former gang member reformed 5 years, no known current criminal activity). So far as SHIELD intel can discover, he never introduces himself to anyone as anything but “just call me Steve”. Rogers does not reestablish contact with SHIELD, but neither does he try particularly hard to evade the agents tailing him, and he does take to visiting Stark Tower every other week or so.

(Fury still does not have eyes inside Stark tower, a fact which irritates and worrys him in equal measure. Apart from anything else, there is a disturbing lack of explosions coming from the building, considering that it's currently serving as home to Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, several billion dollars worth of experimental lab technology, and a Hulk.)

Every Saturday Rogers takes the day off to trail around museums or visit the graves of friends – a different friend each time, and never with such frequency that it makes SHIELD psychologists antsy - and every Sunday morning he goes to visit a tiny little half-repaired church-turned-soup-kitchen on 126th to hear the service and carols.

And every Sunday afternoon, Steve goes to play chess and drink coffee with a little old man in Central Park.

It’s all disgustingly wholesome and all-American. Apart from his possible flirtation with the girl in the apartment next door to Sam's (Berenice Rosenthal, age: 21, height: 5’7”, law student, New York City College, no known political or criminal affiliations) and his adamant refusal to let either SHIELD or any media outlet within a hundred yards of his person, he doesn't seem to be causing any problems. Beating up rubble is, at least, a lot cheaper than beating up punching bags, so in the end SHIELD shrugs it’s collective shoulders and lets Steve be.

 

 

So, yes: there are signs. And while everyone pretty much agrees that it was Steve who caused all the trouble and SHIELD that failed to stop him, it could also be argued that some of the blame might lie with Tony. After all, it was Tony who was given the best chance of figuring out what was happening, and completely failed to notice anything unusual going on.

 

 

“Hey, Tony?” Steve asks, sticking his head into the workshop. Tony’s busy at the moment, thinking about the armor and schematics and the manifold difficulties involved in reverse-engineering divine Norse alien magic, and so he maybe doesn’t pay as much attention as he should have when Steve asks, “do you think I’m a mutant?”

“What? Nah, Cap, you’re gorgeous, peak of human perfection, fine upstanding patriotic healthy normal american boy, that whole shebang. Some girl giving you a hard time?”

“No, Tony,” Steve says, ignoring the fact that Tony is clearly not listening, “girls haven’t been bothering me. I know I look all right – well, according to that _TMZ_ thing on the television last Tuesday – and I don’t care about that anyway. I’m asking you whether or not you think I’m a mutant.”

Tony glances up, more at the tone than the words – which he still isn’t really paying attention to.

“Huh?”

Steve blinks back at him with the _exact_ same kind of stubbornness that has lead in the past to _defected from duty to travel thirty miles behind enemy lines with a USO girl's helmet and a stolen parachute_ , the kind of stubbornness that will lead in the future to _the SHRA is an unconstitutional act and I will not stand down_ , except that Tony doesn’t remember the first part just then, won’t know the second for another twenty years, and isn't really paying attention anyway, so all he really thinks at the time is that Steve’s eyes are the _exact_ same wavelength of blue as the emissions he’s currently trying to replicate: vibranium blue, cosmic-cube blue, just slightly bluer than the glow of his own arc reactor..

“The super-soldier serum changed me, Tony, down to a cellular level. It chemically altered my D.N.A. I’ve mutated, but I wasn’t born this way. So am I a mutant?”

At Tony’s incredulous stare, Steve takes a tighter grip on his shield, feet braced defensively. “It’s a valid question.”

Tony blinks.

“Uh, no? I don’t know? Jesus, Cap, you know genetic shit isn’t my area, I'm all about the _applied_ biology but not so much the theoretical, go ask Bruce- actually, wait, no, don’t, talking to him about the super-serum can only end _really really_ badly and we just rebuilt that floor- I’m sure there's some soft science books around here _somewhere_ , maybe, propping up a table, hey, genetics are boring, don’t judge - or you could call that weird friend of Reed’s with the ants, Hank something-or-other, I’m pretty sure he does biology, Pep's got his number- why the hell would you even _care_ , anyway, it's not like it's a 100-thousand-dollar issue-”

Steve beams, radiating sincere gratitude.

“That’d be swell, Tony, thanks. I’d really like a second opinion on this.”

“No problem?” Tony says, not entirely sure what he’s being thanked _for_ , and by the time Steve’s left the workshop, striding purposefully out like a man on a mission, Tony’s mind is entirely occupied by armor schematics once more, and by what Pepper might be wearing to dinner that night, and by _I wonder if I filter through compound crystal layers I could isolate that wavelength, it’s such a distinctive color of azure_ …

 

So it's not as if there aren't signs. It's just that nobody picks up on them until it is all, rather publicly and decisively, too late.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, check it out! Ploooooot is happening! Also, 500+points to you and a cameo appearance if you guess which Ultimates/616 characters will shortly be appearing in this fic. (See updated tags for a hint). :D

 

 When Fury calls him in to talk about Team Image, Tony is completely convinced he’s going to be chewed out (possibly over his checkered past, possibly over that thing last week with the press and those grenades, he doesn’t really know. Tony has learned over the years that it doesn’t really matter what the reason is, or even if there is a reason – sooner or later, everybody decides he’s a screwup, and since there is actually very little he can say to argue with this, the best approach is to remind them of all the reasons why they ought to like him anyway. He comes prepared with helicarrier upgrades and a five-stage plan to organize an independent nonprofit to provide extra funding for the Avengers, and a resolution not to apologize for anything. _Especially_ that thing with the Japanese oil magnates.)

(At least he knows he’s not being called in because of some kind of sex scandal; thanks to Pepper, those days are behind him. Also thanks to Pepper, he's pretty sure it would be the end of either his life or his happiness if he were ever caught in some kind of sex scandal. He looks forward happily to never being involved in any kind of sex scandal ever again.)

(He also has a weird niggling feeling that this might have something to do somehow with mutants, maybe, but can’t quite remember when he last heard the term – scientific journal, maybe? Anyway, it’s probably not important.)

“Stark,” growls Fury, by way of a greeting.

“Okay, so I know Fox news has been looping the footage for days now but that thing with O’Reilley and those grenades was fully not my faul-”

“Hill will brief you,” Fury cuts him off, sweeping aside to reveal Agent Hill, wearing a scowl and a form-fitting jumpsuit, and Erik Soelvig, wearing a mercifully far-less form-fitting jumpsuit and an embarrassed grin that reeks of exactly the kind of guilty I-didn’t-do-it that Tony has been trying to keep from creeping across his own face. “We need you to assist our agents in bringing in Thor.”

“Thor, like _that_ Thor, oh awesome, I love Thor - heeeeey, waitaminute, you mean I’m not in trouble over O’Reilley? Because Pep said I was totally going to be strung up to _dry_ over O’Reilley, and- _Hang_ on, Thor, like, _that_ Thor? I thought Thor was in Asgard.”

“I _wish_ Thor was in Asgard,” Fury grumbles. “I am trying to keep your superhero boy band's government charter intact, I do not need to deal with his shit. Stark, as of right now, I am officially making his shit your problem.”

“Uh, okay. Uh, why? I mean, I thought I was being called here about a PR problem-”

“You are,” says Hill. “Thor _is_ the problem.”

“So, wait, hang on, you’re calling me in to _solve_ your PR problem? Have you actually _met_ me before?”

All three of them blink at him. Tony blinks back. “Just, look, uh, this is kind of, um, unprecedented. And also really dumb. Have you _seen_ me with journalists? No, really, google me, just see what comes up-”

“Stark.” Fury interrupts again, shutting Tony up. His eyepatch twitches. “I am going to say this once and once only. I don’t like you. I think you’re an unprofessional, self-centered asshat whose continued employment at SHIELD is an insult to me and my organization. But Captain America won’t let anyone take his picture, Agent Barton is undergoing psychiatric testing, Agent Romanova is threatening to go rogue, and we’re frankly just trying to keep the Hulk’s kill count under cover as long as we possibly can. Right now, your hookers and blow are a hell of a lot less likely to convince all the government stooges trying to poke their noses onto my ship that the Avengers should be disbanded, repurposed, extradited, or killed. When it comes to handling the media, you are actually marginally less awful than the rest of my options.”

“Mostly I just throw money or sex at the nice reporters until they go away,” says Tony. He is still kind of waiting for the hidden cameras to come out, or maybe for Pepper to pinch him. “What the hell do you expect _me_ to do about a rogue Thor?”

Fury rolls his eye, and pushes himself up from the table.

“You’re a consultant, Stark. Fucking well consult.”

The door swung shut behind him with an ominous clang, and Tony looks back and forth from Hill, to Soelvig, to Hill, and then around at the complete lack of hidden cameras.

“So, just to be clear, we _are_ talking about Thor, like, that Thor?”

“Thor arrived back on Earth, by our estimates, approximately forty-eight hours after he departed with Loki and the cosmic cube,” says Hill, opening a file folder (made of real paper, how cute, it's like an antique or something) and shoving it across the table at him. “He went immediately to Dr. Foster’s place of residence in Tromso, and as far as we can tell remained there for approximately three weeks before resurfacing in northeastern China, where a large hammer-wielding man reportedly destroyed no less than 145 separate chemical plants. Since then he’s been traveling around the globe more or less incessantly, attacking a range of targets, and causing property damage in the tens of thousands.” She shoots a dirty glare at Solveig, who, apparently seeing a chance to offload some responsibility, bursts in eagerly.

"We think it’s Darcy's fault."

"...Darcy?"

"One of the research assistants from the team that discovered him." Agent Hill's face twitches in a way that, coming from Natasha, would have indicated forthcoming death. "She's a _poly-sci major_. From _Berkeley, California_." _  
_

"…Oh?"

"She's only the second Earth-person he ever met," Hill continues, sounding kind of exasperated and kind of embarrassed. "He doesn't know any better, and by the time we found out what was going on it was too late to tell him anything different; he's hell-bent on using his powers to champion electric cars, an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, and gay rights – _gay rights_ , for god's sake! He marches in _pride parades_!”

"You're talking about it like it's a bad thing," Solveig, apparently forgetting his current doghouse status, scowls at her. "At least Thor's promoting a worthwhile cause during his time here, instead of beating up mountain lions or trying to take over the Earth or something. Those girls are managing to do a world of good with him; they've already succeeded in taking back nearly all the land that formerly belonged to the South American rainforests."

"Taking back-" Tony chokes, picturing armies of angry Brazilians getting mown down by Thor's hammer.

"Not like that," said Hill quickly, who has probably had similar images floating through her nightmares for the last four months. "SHIELD’s personnel have been liasing with Mr. Thor in developing nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution. Nobody wants a repeat of New Mexico."

"...New Mexico?" Tony repeats. He vaguely remembers Coulson saying something about New Mexico, back last year when there'd been all that trouble with the arc reactor and Hammer (dick) and Vanko. "Haaaaaaang on, I didn't think SHIELD even knew what ‘nonviolence’ _meant_. Or was I just _imagining_ the whole ‘Stage Two’ thing, and those emails you keep sending me begging for new tanks, and the-"

“By ‘SHIELD personnel’, she means me,” said Solveig.

“Ah.” Hill’s dirty looks suddenly made a lot more sense. Tony stifles a grin, and makes mental notes to start trying to poach Solveig away from SHIELD’s R’n’D department as soon as humanly possible. Anyone gutsy enough to preach pacifism to Norse War Deities ought to be able to handle the Board’s ceaseless attempts to restart weapons production behind his back.

"And New Mexico...well, let's just say that a little family spat got somewhat out of hand,” says Hill. “SHIELD teams had to rebuild the entire downtown. Thankfully, there were only about fifty casualties."

Tony tries very hard not to think about the fact that Hill thinks of fifty casualties as 'only', and reminds himself that he has voluntarily agreed to work with these people.

"But if he hasn't been...smiting anything, then _how_? I mean, the Amazon rainforest – that's gotta be more than ten thousand square miles worth of land! Even _I_ don't have enough money to buy that much land."

Solveig gives Tony an unrepentant smirk. "Oh, it's far more than ten thousand. It's all the land that _was_ ever rainforest, not just the land that is rainforest now."

Tony blinks.

"They've been holding sit-ins," says Solveig. "And petitioning, and doing internet fundraisers."

Hill groans, dropping her head into her hands. “It wouldn't be so horrible if it didn't all _work_.”

Tony must still look kind of skeptical, because Hill turns and pulls up a file on the nearest screen, twisting it around to show Tony the image of what looks like a ‘60s hippie rave, crowds cheering wildly and waving signs. "He's a _god_. He has _followers_. At the last protest, they had to shut down half of Rio de Janiero to fit everybody in."

"I- oh." Tony is still busy boggling. Half a city? But wait, that must mean- He does a lot more blinking, and finally manages, "...Internet fundraising?"

"Thor is currently number two trending on Twitter."

Hill leans forward, clearly eager to regain control of the conversation. “Your task, in this situation, is to bring him back _without_ arousing more of this kind of media attention. Get him onto American soil, and SHIELD can take it from there. Although Commander Fury would also _strongly recommend_ that you offer him persuasion against continuing his ideological crusade.”

“Yeah, yeah, read between the lines, I get it, wink wink nudge nudge, but _just_ to be clear,” says Tony, slowly, sliding his sunglasses down and off his nose, “why _am_ I bringing him in, exactly? Because I was under the impression,” and he drops the mask of _billionaire playboy_ that he wears around him like a second skin and lets a little of the _genius Iron Man builds deadly weapons with a box of scraps_ shine through, “that I signed on for a 9 to 5 gig when I agreed to work with you people, and nothing I’ve read yet says you get to decide what we do with our free time. Or our political beliefs, should we choose to hold them. I am a dedicated pacifist, and if Fury ever starts getting thoughts about bringing me in over the destruction of the latest stolen shipment of old Stark weaponry or whatever, SHEILD had better loin their girds and topsail their battens, because that shit is just _not on_. And I’m not helping you do it to Thor. So tell me: why should I help you with this? ”

Hill opens her mouth, no doubt to yell something angry and stupid, but before she can get a word out, Solveig leans in.

“Because you Avengers are heroes.” His voice is quiet, laced with the kind of sincerity that Tony is best acquainted with coming from Captain America. “You’ve saved the world. You’re all good men – and women. But now you need to convince people of that fact. The EU, UN, NATO, and just about every multinational organization out there is asking what right the US has to control the world’s only team of superhuman weapons. The New York City Council is looking for someone to blame for the damages caused during the Chitauri invasion. The government is threatening to disband you and withdraw SHIELD funding – or worse. Some crackpots have been talking about killing you. And when an alien princeling is off destroying foreign nations’ property inside EU safe trade zones, no matter how good his intentions are, he’s playing right into those crackpots’ hands.”

Tony blinks. Clearly, he needs to update his spyware; he’d heard about SHIELD funding possibly getting revoked, and the New York City Council trying to milk SHIELD for the cost of rebuilding (something he’d handily solved with his shiny new nonprofit, incidentally, boosting the Avengers’ collective public approval rating past 45% and well into the 50s or 60s) but he hadn’t heard about the EU and UN trying to horn in on US control of the Avengers, and really, that’s the kinda thing he should have expected, it’s not like the world was gonna stand for the US having exclusive control over the global supply of superheroes for long, especially when one of those superheroes _wore the American flag on his frikkin’ chest_ , Jesus…

"Oh. Well, okay then." Tony raises a dry eyebrow. _Steve_. _Gotta talk to Steve. And Pepper, and the bankers, and the lawyers, see if they can- but first, Steve_. “Find Thor. Tell Thor to quit smiting foreign shit and come smite US shit. Go get the god of parties to live in my frat house. I can do that.” He contemplates Hill and Solveig for another few seconds, shoving the sunglasses back up his nose, then grins. "Hey, you reckon those followers have any spare beer?"

“And _that_ ,” said Solveig, grinning broadly, “is why I told them to call you when they decided to bring him in.”

 

 

Thor’s followers did, it turns out, have spare beer. And spare pot. And spare absynthe, and several colorful pill-type things that even Tony didn't know the names for. Thor must've spread the word about the Avengers to his followers or something, because once Tony gives them his name they're more than happy to include him in the festivities, which are currently being held in what used to be a large Wal-Mart shopping center, and direct him to the nearest refreshments/bathrooms/bra-burning stations as needed. They are less helpful in directing him to Thor, but Tony is more or less okay with that. He's having a plenty good enough time as it is. _  
_

"So," he says, some indistinct and pleasantly swirly amount of time later, collapsing against the closest potting-rack-turned bar next to an attractive blonde. "What brings you into the Thor-groupie business?"

"I'm not a groupie," she says, in a tone of voice far too grumpy for anybody sitting in close proximity to that much alcohol. "I'm a nuclear physicist."

"Oh," said Tony. After a long time, it occurrs to him that this is kind of funny, so he adds, "ha."

"No, actually I _am_ ," she snaps. "Have you ever heard of an Einstein-Rosen bridge?"

Tony blinks, and gropes around in the lurking fragments of his brain that had, he's pretty sure, been sober at one point a long time in the distant past.

"Shraeder and Blake, '92. Interesting theory, but completely unworkable; too many difficulties with quantum bonding across the Worthington spectra."

She smiles at him, and abruptly transforms from merely moderately attractive to gorgeous. "I'm the one who figured out how to make them bond."

"That would probably make you even smarter than me," says Tony, and then because this conversation is getting interesting and he isn't currently holding a drink, he sticks his hand out. "Tony Stark. Billionaire genius playboy philanthropist."

"Jane Foster. PhD in Astrophysics, Stanford fellow, and summoner of minor deities."

"...Summoner?" says Tony. Her look turns surprised, then dubious.

"Yeah, didn't you know? I mean, I sort of thought you and that Hill bitch had come here trying to recruit me again. I'm the one that got Thor back."

Tony stares at her disconcertingly young, pretty smile, the writhing bodies out on the improvised dance floor made of what used to be the house and garden aisle, and the full beer cans stacked three-deep in front of him, and leans forward to will himself sober.

"Tell me _everything_."


	3. Chapter 3

“Steve!” Pepper pushes her chair back, immediately glad she decided to work from home today. “Come in!”

“Oh, hi, Miss Potts.” Steve pokes his head sheepishly around the doorway. “Sorry, I didn’t see – you’re busy, I can come back later. I just wanted to talk to Tony about the mutant issue.”

Pepper had, as a matter of fact, been busy, but there's a glint in Steve's eye that makes her think it might be a very good idea not to be, at least for the next few hours.

“Mutant? What mutant issue?”

“Well, yeah, I’m sure he’ll have heard about it by now, I mean, they did an article in _Scientific American_ and everything.” Steve pushes forward a copy of _Scientific American_ , which does indeed, she sees, have a cover featuring some form of blue furry monkey standing next to a model DNA strand, with the headline banner “MUTANTS AMONG US!!!!!!” It seems fairly innocuous, despite the somewhat…enthusiastic… punctuation.

Flipping it open, she skims the article, the gist of which seems to be that lots of babies are being born with superpowers, and taps a manicured nail against the front cover for a second or two while she thinks.

Point one: for all that Steve professed to thinking Tony has already heard about this, he brought along a copy of Scientific American to show him, which means the issue maybe isn’t as much of a big deal as Steve thinks it is. Which means (point two): Steve cares. About mutants, and possibly (probably) about what Tony thinks about mutants.  Pepper is not blind to the way that Steve Rogers looks at her boyfriend, although she strongly suspects Steve might be. Unfortunately (point three): Tony has been holed up in his lab and speaking to no one, including her, ever since he came back from meeting Dr. Foster in Seoul. As far as she can tell, his only contact with the outside world has been all those confidential emails from Fury that he thinks she doesn’t know about. And, lastly (point four): she has a business lunch halfway across town in three quarters of an hour, and the CEO of Apple is still on line 2.

This is going to require _handling_.

 

 

 

Prudently, Pepper asks Steve to wait in the lobby while she comes down as an advance guard. Tony’s lab is still locked, but he hasn’t deprogrammed her overrides yet, which means he is ( _finally_ , it’s been weeks) ready to be dragged kicking and screaming back into the outside world.

“Tony, Captain America is here to see you.”

Tony’s response is immediate, and violent.            

“I’m not talking to him!”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s a warmongering commie nutzoid socialist _dick_ , that’s why,” Tony snarls, banging the gauntlet down against the workbench so hard something sparks.

Pepper pauses in something that feels very much like alarm. She hasn’t seen Tony this upset about something since Hammer beat him out for that mephone patent back in December ’02.

“’…warmongering communist’?” She repeats faintly. They are still talking about the same Captain America, right?

“That’s okay, Tony” comes Steve’s warm voice from behind her. “I mean, you’re a self-centered, close-fisted, money-grubbing isolationist bastard, but I still think you’re a pretty swell guy.”

Pepper is busy taking a second coming to terms with the fact that Captain America said the word bastard.

Captain. America. Said. The. Word. Bastard.

In relation to Tony, which is actually completely understandable, but still.

Captain _America_ just called someone a _bastard_.

Also, Steve apparently knows the way down to Tony’s private lab, and feels comfortable enough with a) the layout of the tower, and b) Tony’s proclivities to follow her there.

Tony flings the welding torch onto the desk with a bang and whirls around to jab an angry finger at the star on Captain Rogers’s chest, face lit with righteous fury.

“You listen to me, you hapless anachronistic rosy-eyed shmuk, Keynesian economics is what destroyed _my_ stock portfolio back in the 1980s, don’t think for one minute that you-”

“Sorry about this, Miss Pepper, ma’am” Steve says, grinning sheepishly up at her. “I tried to talk to Tony about politics last week, and ever since then, we’ve been having a little fight.”

“ _Little fight_ , this is not a _little fight_ , this is me trying to fix your misperception of the way the fucking world _works_ , okay, I don’t know what kind of Big Brother crap they’ve been feeding you but military intervention is _not_ an acceptable way of resolving any kind of international conflict and the fact that you think so just _proves_ that all that time on ice has damaged your brain cells-”

Pepper has _never_ seen Tony in a mood like this before, which is kind of shocking, because Pepper had thought she’d seen Tony in _all_ his moods. In her confusion, she falls back on her standard approach of simply pretending that the words coming out of his mouth don’t exist until he either gets tired or reaches a point.

“ _Tony_. Steve wanted to talk to you about the composition of the team.”

Tony stops still, frozen, as if someone has put him on pause, and for one bare moment, the anger slides away to be replaced with pure, raw calculation, before he breaks effortlessly into a smarmy, over-exaggerated society grin.

Pepper (mentally) sighs.

“Right. Team composition. So, Captain I-Oppose-Workplace-Equality, tell me, who is it _you_ want to vote off the island? Hulk wants himself banned for the good of society, Black Widow’s already come to me three times recommending the sidelining of Hawkeye for medical reasons – and I have to admit I didn’t see that one coming – and Thor wants you and both SHIELD agents blacklisted until all three of you reduce your carbon footprints. Which, can I just say that it’s actually kind of ironic that I’m the most eco-friendly one of us, considering I didn’t even know what environmentalism _was_ before Pep made me read that brief on it back in 1992?”

“I don’t want anybody off the team.”

Tony blinks. The society grin falls away, and his eyes go wary with disbelief.

“I want more people on it,” Steve insists, taking a step forward, pushing himself into Tony’s space and forcing Tony to drop the soldering iron. “You’re all about equality and _diversity_ , Tony. You think I can’t learn to compromise? Well, here’s me admitting it: I was wrong about affirmative action. High-level representation is good for oppressed minorities, and quotas can in some circumstances be used as a force for good. To _help_ lasting societal change, not to serve as a substitute.” 

It doesn’t sound at all like an apology, or a capitulation; an undercurrent of half-angry challenge laces through Steve’s voice that Pepper can practically _taste_ Tony responding to, and oh, this is _bad_ -

Steve slams the Scientific American down on the table, obliterating Tony’s half-finished schematics. “”The Avengers need some mutants on our team.”

And that’s when the yelling _really_ begins.

**Author's Note:**

> I might as well acknowledge it at the start: I am well aware that I do not sit anywhere near the center when it comes to political opinion, and my feelings about several of the real-world issues that come up in the course of this fic (and several of the fictional issues that, like mutant or metahuman rights, happen to mirror real-world concerns) are quite strong. That said, the views put forth by the characters in this fic are NOT my own, and are NOT in ANY WAY necessarily something that I would, or would not endorse, and I hope that the more controversial viewpoints contained here do not offend any of my readers. I have endeavored to be, if not balanced, then at least honest in my presentation of the characters' various political attitudes, which are based largely off of comics and movie canon, and occasionally off of plot-related necessity. 
> 
> Also, please do let me know if you come across anything I have forgotten to warn for - I went over this with a fine-tooth comb for triggers, and if there are any I have missed I am most sincerely sorry and would like to remedy the situation ASAP.
> 
> (Also, the comment Tony makes about 100-thousand-dollar issues is an oblique reference to an actual legit no-kidding legal battle over whether or not Captain America was a mutant. For some reason, the thought of serious-faced lawyers in courtrooms debating this is intensely hilarious to me.)


End file.
